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The NL Halloween Special - Games and Anime

So you want something to scare the pants off you on Halloween… come around my place baby. Alternatively you could choose the less adventurous route and check out one of these games:

Project Zero

Rumored to be based on a real life murders, Project Zero puts you in the dainty shoes of Miku Hinasaki who is searching for her brother who went to research the Himuro Mansion, a site of gruesome deaths that is said to be populated by the raging ghosts of its victims. Miku is soon waylaid by vengeful ghosts who are only able to be dispersed by a camera used during exorcisms. Project Zero cleverly makes it so that the only way to destroy the abominations that you want to run away from is by standing by and getting a closer look at them. Say ‘Cheese’!

Silent Hill 3

With imagery siphoned from Adrian Lyne’s excellent thriller ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, Silent Hill throws the player into a twisted dreamland in which the main character’s subconscious fears manifest in reality. Each monster the player faces is based on a particular fear that the character has, ranging from designs based attempting to create the look of an abusive mother through an infants eyes to monstrous phallic depictions of regular worms. A surreal trip into the darkest recesses of the human mind, Silent Hill 3 is one game you won’t want to play alone.

Eternal Darkness

Most games have one particular method of invoking fear containing a dark atmosphere, being gore-filled or relying on ‘jump’ scares to get your adrenaline going. Eternal Darkness incorporates several different methods, one of which is bound to make you lose control of your bladder. With a disturbing storyline inspired by Lovecraft (we are talking about walking through a tower built out of rotting corpses), numerous decapitations and scares that jump out of nowhere you already have a pretty freaky game. What Eternal Darkness is famous for however is its ‘Sanity Effects’. When your character has been subjected to too many horrors certain phenomena occur. This can be anything from the room turning upside down to the game making it look like your console has crashed. Now that is scary.

Gaming not your scene- Eager for some animation desolation- Check out these this Halloween.

Elfen Lied

What do you get when you combine over the top visceral violence with cute girls with exposed breasts- A show I will totally watch. The show follows a living weapon that is injured on its inevitable escape from the research lab that created it. The weapon loses its identity and reverts to the personality of a young child who can only say ‘Nyu’. Nyu is taken in by two college students who vow to protect what they believe is an innocent girl. The show is not only creepy and gory but also tugs at the heart strings. By the fourth episode the introduction sequence was making me a little teary… I’m such a softie. It is a series that shows that even horrible abominations can be beautiful on the inside… especially when they have big juggs. ‘Nyu’.Wicked City

Overly gross and excessive, Wicked City shows just how perverted the mind can be. Set in a modern Tokyo that is at war with an alternate demon world, Wicked City is infamous for it’s over the top violence and sexual symbolism (Wikipedia interestingly refers to it as Oral Sodomy… What the hell is that-). Probably a bit too graphic for most viewers, Wicked City still is quite a suspenseful horror flick and can be picked up very cheap practically everywhere.

Perfect Blue

A psychological thriller exploring themes of privacy and identity, Perfect blue is one of the creepiest films ever to be released. The story follows a popular singer who changes her career to become an actor. After being labeled a traitor by her fans the protagonist becomes increasingly paranoid as she stumbles upon internet sites describing her every movement. Powerfully creepy Perfect Blue will make you sleep with the lights on for weeks to come.

Hellsing Ultimate

If excessive violence combined with slapstick violence is your thing then Hellsing Ultimate is a good show to settle down with this Halloween. A more literal interpretation of Kouta Hirano’s work than the previous Hellsing series, Hellsing Ultimate contains almost as much gore as a Takashi Miike film. Following the recently resurrected vampire Aculard (a name that is overused in anime, it is ‘Dracula’ backwards by the way) on his quest to snuff out the remnants of his species, Hellsing, much like Elfen Lied, mixes abhorrent scenes of gore with cute off the wall comedy in a winning combination.Be warned though this series is quite graphic, part of the packaging that comes with the first volume even states that the buyer is a ‘freak’.Blood: The Last Vampire

Who would have guessed that a movie with this title would actually be a horror movie- Expertly told, Blood throws the watcher into a situation they know absolutely nothing about. On my first of several screenings, I actually checked the packaging to make sure I hadn’t picked up a sequel by accident. The story revolves around demons masquerading as humans in order to lure their prey, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A single schoolgirl, who assumably is the vampire in all this works in conjunction with a government agency to stop these creatures before their numbers grow out of control. Fast paced and superbly animated Blood is horror that is a cut above the rest.